In archaeology, culture refers to either of two separate but allied concepts: Archaeology or archæology or sometimes in American English archeology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of cultural and environmental data, including architecture, artefacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes. ...

An archaeological culture is a pattern of similar artefacts and features found within a specific area over a limited period of time. They are sometimes termed Techno-Complexes (Technology-Complexes) to differentiate them from sociological culture.

By using the term "culture", archeologists indicate that these patterns of assemblages are thought to be indicative of the wider behaviour of a particular society (though see the theories of processual archaeology and post-processual archaeology). Where the assemblages consist of only a single artefact type the term is more correctly an industry, although the ideas behind the culture and the industry are the same. Cultures are the basic units of Prehistoric archaeology and were first fully explored by Vere Gordon Childe in the late 1920s. He wrote:

We find certain types of remains - pots, implements, ornaments, burial rites and house forms - constantly recurring together. such a complex of associated traits we shall call a "cultural group" or just a "culture". We assume that such a complex is the material expression of what today we would call "a people".

This assumption exemplifies Childe's materialist view of the past which was influenced by his Marxist beliefs. The Culture History approach to archaeology is largely reliant on this rigid concept of material culture and human beings being closely connected. Later archaeologists have questioned this interpretation and its tempting conclusion that a culture is a single group with straightforward aims. As archaeological knowledge has increased, the definitions of what cultures mean have become less clear. For example, cultures are assigned names by archaeologists not the people who originally made the assemblages; the names are arbitrary and normally connected with the modern names for past societies' occupation sites or defining items they used. Such names can be misleading as in many cases it has transpired that the supposed monolithic culture is in fact a number of different ones following further study. The original name therefore, which was retroactively applied, has little significance. Diffusionist and migrationist interpretations used to explain changes in past societies often rely on the idea of large numbers of people moving great distances and bringing their culture with them. an alternative interpretation is that the so-called culture is in fact just the technological know-how which has travelled through trading for example and that beliefs and practices connected with the material culture are likely to differ from place to place. an example is the Windmill Hill culture which now simply serves as a general label for several different groups occupying southern Britain during the Neolithic. Conversely, some archaeologists have also tried to argue that some supposedly distinctive cultures are really manifestations of a wider culture but with local differences based on environmental factors as with Clactonian man.

The concept of the culture still remains popular however and as with the three-age system it remains useful in most cases as a shorthand term for time periods, regions and distinctive practices.

Material culture refers to physical objects from the past, the study of which is the basis of the discipline. Material culture is the counterpart of verbal culture and learned behaviour and together they constitute human activity. Archaeologists seek to study and explain past human activity and the changes that affected it. The term is derived from anthropology and sociology which study distinctive cultures. Archaeologists also try to understand the general articulation of past human societies by inferring what the less permanent aspects of their cultures may have been like from the material record they have left behind and sometimes other sources such as modern anthropological evidence. Examples include William Duncan Strong's direct historical approach.

Categories: Methods and principles in archaeology | Archaeological cultures This article is about the archaeological concept of artifacts (or artefacts). ... In archaeology, the term feature is generally used to refer to any nonportable remnant of human activity, such as a hearth, road, or house remains, later found or recovered by some archaeological endeavor. ... The word culture comes from the Latin root colere (to inhabit, to cultivate, or to honor). ... An assemblage is an archaeological term meaning a group of different artefacts found in association with one another, that is, in the same context. ... Processual archaeology is a form of archaeological theory which arguably had its genesis in 1958 with Willey and Phillips work, Method and Theory in American Archeology when the pair stated that American archeology is anthropology or it is nothing (Willey and Phillips, 1958:2). ... Postprocessual archaeology is related to the broader process of postmodernism during the 1980s. ... History is the study of the past using written records. ... Vere Gordon Childe (April 14, 1892 - October 19, 1957) was an Australian archaeologist, perhaps best known for his excavation of the unique Neolithic site of Skara Brae in Orkney and for his Marxist views which informed his thinking about prehistory. ... Sometimes referred to as the Roaring Twenties. Events and trends Technology John T. Thompson invents Thompson submachine gun, also known as Tommy Gun. ... This article primarily focuses on the general concepts of matter and existence. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Cultural history, at least in its common definition since the 1970s, often combines the approaches of anthropology and history to look at popular cultural traditions and cultural interpretations of historical experience. ... Diffusionism is the theory about the development of cultures and technologies, particularly in ancient history. ... Migrationism is an approach to explaining changes in past societies based on the theory that movements of people from one region to another can account for changes in the culture of the second region. ... The Windmill Hill culture was a name given to a people inhabiting southern Britain during the early Neolithic. ... The Neolithic, (Greek neos=new, lithos=stone, or New Stone Age) is traditionally the last part of the stone age. ... The Clactonian is the name given by archaeologists to an industry of European flint tool manufacture which dates to the early part of the interglacial period known as the Hoxnian, the Mindell-Riss or the Holstein interglacial (300,000-200,000 years ago). ... The three-age system is a system of classifying human prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies: The Stone Age The Bronze Age The Iron Age It was introduced by the Dane Christian J rgensen Thomsen in the 1820s in order to classify... Aurignacian is the name of a culture of the Upper Palaeolithic present in Europe and south west Asia. ... The Beaker people (or `Beaker folk) were an archaeological culture present in prehistoric Europe, defined by a pottery style -- a beaker with a distinctive bell-shaped profile -- that many archeologists believe spread across the western part of the Continent during the 3rd millennium BC. The pottery is particularly prevalent in... The Wessex culture is a name given to the predominant prehistoric culture of southern Britain during the early Bronze Age. ... The word culture comes from the Latin root colere (to inhabit, to cultivate, or to honor). ... Anthropology (from the Greek word άνθρωπος = human) consists of the study of humankind (see genus Homo). ... Sociology is the study of the social lives of humans, groups and societies. ... William Duncan Strong (1899-1962) was an American archaeologist and anthropologist most famous for his development of the Direct historical approach. ... The direct historical approach was an archaeological and anthropological technique invented by the American scholar William Duncan Strong during the 1920s and 1930s. ... This article is about the archaeological concept of artifacts (or artefacts). ... In geographic information systems, a feature comprises an item of feature data. ... In archaeology, a biofact or ecofact is an object, found at an archaeological site and carrying archaeological significance, but (unlike an artifact) not altered by human hands. ... In archaeology, a biofact or ecofact is an object, found at an archaeological site and carrying archaeological significance, but (unlike an artifact) not altered by human hands. ... In archaeology and anthropology, a manuport is a natural object which has been moved from its original context by human agency but otherwise remains unmodified. ...

The academic purpose of the program is to train graduate and undergraduate students in archaeological field and laboratory methods.

Students are trained in the excavation of well-defined cultural contexts, the collection of special samples (i.e., charcoal, pollen, phytoliths, etc.), elementary soil analysis, and identification of depositional and post-depositional formation processes.

In a traditional archaeologicalculture, artifacts, no matter how we define them, are detached from a living culture by time and only appear as a remnant of past life ways.

Since human behavior is reflected in material culture common ground exists between archaeology and anthropology - one starts with archaeological research interests, goes to ethnographic data for formulation and/or testing hypotheses, models and/or theories about these interests, and then returns to the archaeological record to implement the understanding gained from the ethnographic data.

Archaeological surveys, however, have not addressed deeper issues of observed human behavior and culture that still survive in rural Anatolia.

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